Forest Fairy
by HovaStrider
Summary: when a young officer is murdered, his fantasy girl is suspected as the next target. once the team finds her they soon realize she is nothing near normal, just like how this case is turning out. Just who is after her? and what is she hiding from them? (Officially ongoing; Please Read, Review, Share)
1. Chapter 1

I run in moonlit snow, my paws kicking up clouds of melting white as I leap and bound through the trees, the smell of wild goose practically filling my nose to the point of insanity. I don't like goose much, but it's a wonderful treat to find any available prey this time of year. And who doesn't appreciate a goose dinner?

I can smell the bird now, it's a wild one, grey feathers so similar to farm raised ganders it's scary. But there aren't any farms around, just camping grounds and a wildlife preserve, the latter is some few minutes away at full run. I'm taking a big risk hunting so far from my 'territory', but what choice do I have? Prey is hard enough for the animals who actually live there to come by and I have to eat more than the canned food in my pantry back at the cabin, not to mention my paycheck has been a bit disappointing ever since the park rangers found out someone had been living in old Cabin 36, so run down only a ghost, or a cleanup crew would be interested in it.

I blame the 'neighbors', they thought they saw a wolf running around the old place and called the park rangers to investigate, and long story short, now I have to pay rent on the place just like any other camper out here does for their plot use. Not to mention I was almost arrested and fined for housing an endangered animal without a license or whatever. Luckily they bought the story I told them of that wolf just hanging around, they saw no evidence of any animals in the cabin near as they could tell, (glad I'd been fixing up the place)

I hear my stomach growling, hope the dumb bird doesn't hear it, further more hope my instincts don't mangle the thing before I take it home. I inch closer to the ground, my mouth practicly liquefied from the expectations, the bird is sitting in a patch of newly growing grass looking for food. It doesn't sense me, I come a little closer, my instinct tells me to charge now, but common sense says this one is able to fly and that's often a problem.

I shift my weight and come a little closer, sitting still whenever I stop, the goose 'thinks' it hears something but it soon goes back to searching in the grass, perfect. Just a little more, it's so close I can taste it.

Something snaps in the brushes, the bird is startled, I jump at it with everything I've got landing with nothing but a mouthful of feathers. The bird was able to fly off into a tree and glide away.

I stand there stunned, a perfect opportunity, a grand week's worth of a fine plump goose at the end of winter and all I got was a mouthful of horrible feathers, down and tail alike. I turn to the sound of voices angrily, the same direction as the snap, someone is carelessly tromping around the woods making the amount of noise only a human could possibly make. I spit out the feathers and begin to morph, it may look horrid, but its actually very painless to change my form, ticklish even depending on how slow I do it. but I'm angry, slow is not going to get me anywhere.

My snout shrinks and splits into a nose and mouth, my fur vanishes along with my prideful tail, my paws shift into hands and feet, my fangs slip into human teeth save for one that's just stubborn my claws weaken into human nails on fingers and toes, my legs alter so my heel is on my foot instead of up on my leg, my skin shivers at eh cold air under my clothes, a simple pair of running pants and exercise shirt and plastic jacket which make me look like I just came from running or the gym, my feet shiver in the cold as they're bare. I shift into another ability of mine and cover them.

The makeshift shoes can't do a thing for the cold, but they'll keep my tender human feet from getting poked out here.

I sweep silently as only I can towards the humans, two of them, male, neither one registering in my memory, so their strangers. Probably new rangers who haven't learned to walk carefully.

"…come on its not that bad." One was saying.

The other sounded less than enthusiastic, "Trudging in a snow covered forest like Red Riding hood without the basket of cookies looking for a possible suspect who supposedly lives in a haunted cabin that was supposed to be demolished six months ago and I left my heavy jacket at the office. Yeah it's a lot better than it sounds Probie."

The first one laughed, "Red Riding hood?"

"The lady said there's been wolf sightings out here didn't she? A huge one that they can't catch."

"Abby said wolves were smart."

I caught up with them, the taste of feathers still in my mouth, they're headed up for my cabin, or my neighbor, currently empty. They stop looking around, the first one pulls out a map from his pocket, he's got a wool cap and gloves on and a brown tweed trench coat, his face is turning red from the cold that's still in the air.

The second one looks a little older, he's shivering in a fall sports jacket, stuffing his hands under his arms trying to keep warm, his whole face is a deeper red, his ears are even turning blue under his spikey black hair. I shake my head as I catch a familiar sent, even with a human nose its unmistakable, car fumes and coffee. These two are arrogant city slicks.

They decide on a direction and start heading away, I hop out of hiding and give a yell. They both turn to me in surprise, a glare at them the way I would to a stray dog trying to steal my food, "You two city slicks owe me dinner,."

They both look between me and each other. Finally one speaks, the one who actually thought to dress warm out here, "Are you by any chance, Hova Monroe?"

I roll my eyes, "Let me guess, Park Ranger Molly wants a reason to kick me out again, what they tell you this time?"

"Um, could we talk back at your place," spikey hair said with a nervous smile, "Its freezing out here…not that you would notice apparently."

I decided to ignore that last comment.

**AN: so this is the revised Proluge of my newest story, Forest Fairy. Name explained in the next chapter. Tell me honestly, what do you think?**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Special Agent Leroy Jethrow Gibbs

12 hours ago…

The body of a former marine, Petty Officer Colby Dickens lay on the clear plastic before the medical examiner. The crime scene before them was his own apartment where he was laid in his own blood stained bed, the one who found him was his roommate, now sitting in the next room talking to the investigators about what happened. I was the one questioning him

"I was coming home late from a welcome home party for my sister, she just got back into the states from china, she was studying abroad there. When I came into the room Cole's door was closed and his shoes at the door so I figured he had just gone to bed, the next morning I went to get him up for work on the base, when I opened the door he was…just…laying there the way you found him. I didn't touch anything there, too scared." The dark skinned man was shivering as he was reliving the incident of that morning. No matter how many cases we take, this sort of thing is to be expected, I can tell he and his roommate were close, Colby's death must be quite a shock for him, I pat him on the shoulder and move on to other questions.

"Can you tell me what he was doing here last night before you left?" I asked him calmly, "Did he tell you any of his plans?"

The young man nodded, "He told me he was planning to go out on a camping trip. Something about a girl he saw there a few months ago on leave."

I frowned, when military take leave they would spend it with family or stay at home, or even go out to a bar and try to get lucky like DiNozzo, "Camping in the middle of winter, for a girl. Sounds like quite the outdoorsman."

The roommate nodded, "Yeah, he couldn't find her anywhere else. Wouldn't stop talking about her, Called her his Forest Fairy."

"Forest Fairy," I couldn't help but smile, "they must've been close."

"I don't know about that, he just told me he met some girl out in the woods. He was staying at his family cabin one last time before they had to sell the place and when he came back he had a picture of her and kept talking about how he couldn't get her out of his head." He shook his head with a smile, "A girl that cute out in the woods by herself, tahts like something out of a fairy tale, and in the same way he wanted to find her out there."

"Do you have her picture with you?"

He shook his head, "Colby got his wallet swiped a few weeks ago, her picture was in it. he does have a sketchbook full of her though."

"Did he ever tell you her name?"

"He told me once; I wasn't paying too much attention at the time. Let's see…"The young man ran his hands through his short curly hair as he tried to think, I could tell he wasn't coming up with anything in particular. Which usually meant we were going to have t do some digging to get what we needed, "Her first name started with an H I think, Helen or Hannah."

"Do you know or not?" I said evenly, I find that a toneless question gets an answer faster than a raised voice.

The young man sighed, "That's all I can tell you, if I'd known her name was so important I would've tried harder to memorize it."

I nodded, patting him on the shoulder, and handing him a card with the agency's number on it, my own being on the back, "Call if you remember anything."

With that I walk away, picking up my coffee and looking at my M.E. and his Gremlin, as Tony calls him, pack away the body in plastic, "What do you got Duck?"

The older man looked up from his work and unsteadily got up from his knees, "not much here I'm afraid Jethrow, cause of death appears to be a single wound near his neck, no visible signs of strangulation or abbreviations, some severe brusing on his shoulder and hands, but nothing conclusive. Mr. Palmer and I will have to get him back home for further examination. Palmer, wrap this up for me will you?"

The spindly guy in glasses gives a small smile and continues his work, "Wrap up. That's a good pun Doctor."

"Not intended, but thank you Mr. Palmer, now if you don't mind." Dr. Mallard glared over his glasses a moment. Palmer nodded and continued, looking a little bothered with his mentor's glare. I shake my head with a smile; no doubt Ducky got that little trick from me. His is gentler of course as he's a much more softhearted person, just as I'm the more serious type.

Palmer gets the gurney up and out of the room, leaving my team to finish up with photos and fingerprints. I take a look around, few dry blood spatters on the floor and the wall behind him, and foot prints of two pairs of boots, all marked for evidence. The bed sheets were covered with red and a few hairs, Ziva, my female agent, was bagging them. Tim was dusting for fingerprints on the furniture, the bed, the door knob, the light switch; anywhere we could pick up comparable prints of the two who shared the apartment.

Tony however was looking through a binder, the camera he was supposed to be using sat on the book shelf, I walked over to his side looking at a set of drawings. Tony flinched as he noticed me over his shoulder, I get that a lot, personally I think it shows how concentrated my team is on whatever they're working on, and if they're working on something important then my little habit of coming up quietly shouldn't concern them. for some reason it always does.

"B-boss, I didn't see you there." Tony turned back to the pictures in the binder, most of them were of a girl, always among trees outside, sometimes alone, sometimes just her head, one was of her with fairy wings and just a little sundress. I snapped it up, handing Tony my coffee and started skimming through it, they were all signed and dated by our now dead marine. Even the pages where he was practicing eyes and how to draw hand and feet have dates on them.

Tony had a pained look on his face, I didn't have to look at him to know as he nervously gave his usual banter, he's a good agent, but sometimes I wish he would stop trying to suck up to me, among other things.

"Um it's a sketch book boss I saw it laying open in the corner here and…" he glanced over my shoulder and picked up his camera, "I should've just put it back…"

I see the last page, this picture is half done, it's of the same girl in a flowing dress standing next to a half-finished man whose face hasn't even been drawn in yet. There's reddish brown on it in letters I don't recognize and its staining the other page. I snap the book shut and hand it to Ziva, "Bag it. There's blood on the last page, could be part of a motive."

Special agent Anthony (Tony) DiNozzo

I'm standing in Abby's lab waiting for the test results of the last page. Gibbs wants to know if its blood and what it says, I'm barely listening as I look at one of Abby's latest additions to her wall of forensic art, this one looks an awful lot like a recolored picture of a pile of fuzzy cantaloupe. With her being a Goth lady in her twenties I've pretty much gotten used to it, her antics and how she happily talks about what's on her mind while she works, including how she thinks our victim's bit it. The happiest Goth anyone would ever meet, and I should know, she once dated another Goth who went into a panic attack after they broke up. Abby was much cooler, for a girl who seemed to have a thing about death and the color black.

Right now she was telling Gibbs about how her face recognition program might be able to get a close match on whoever it was our dead guy was drawing. When she told us her findings on the blood however it got weird.

"…the letters spell 'death' in Romanian, using animal blood, I'm still looking into what kind, wherever this guy got it, he was using it to send a message, not just to Colby, but also to whoever it is in the pictures he was drawing."

Gibbs nodded, "Someone was jealous of his Forest Fairy."

Abby swooned, "Aw, he called her Forest Fairy? That's so sweet, he barely knows her and he thinks of her like a fairy tale. This one has got to be my favorite here."

I turned to see her pull up one I hadn't seen yet of Colby's 'Fairy' at a lake side in a short leafy dress. I let my jaw drop, "why didn't I see this one before?"

"Because you had a job to do and I told Ziva to bag it DiNozzo." Gibbs sipped at his coffee, his tone sending the message right into my head, stop undressing the drawing agent. I gave a cough looking at the screen that had identified the blood.

"Hey Abby, if you were guessing what kind of blood did you think that was?" I asked, she caught onto my gaze and looked at the results, her eyes widening in surprise.

"Oh that's bad, that is really bad, Gibbs, its wolf blood."

Gibbs and I both didn't get it. Abby, in all her Gothyness or whatever you call it clarified, "Well actually its wolf and human blood mixed together, but mostly wolf. Wolves are considered devils in Romanian mythology, which of course is not fair to the wolf, I mean their intelligent and social animals and endangered to top it off. And…."

I cleared my throat as loudly as I could, the girl could go on if you let her.

"Right, case," She turned back to the screen with some concern, talking like someone flipped a switch, "Well it's possible the killer did this to curse Colby in the afterlife by using the blood to curse both him and…oh no."

"Curse? That's total sci-fi stuff Abbs," I scoffed. Abby turned to me looking like someone just told her Gibbs had died.

"We gotta find this girl, before he does." She said in her rare serious and scared tone, not one I like to hear since it always spells trouble one way or another, "I think our killer might be after Colby's forest fairy next."

**So this is first chapter, thank you for reading. Please comment/ review.**


	3. Chapter 3

Tony Dinozzo, continued

In the 'bullpen' where we keep our offices, the three of us were working as fast as we could at our desks, Gibbs was in interrogation helping with another case. Something you don't always see but still don't ask about. When it comes to interrogation, Gibbs can make the toughest guys squirm, sometimes I do too when I watch him work.

I was checking with an old friend of mine about the drawing I had sent in through the fax machine, so far nothing. The guy had never seen her in his life, and knew nothing about her. I had lost the round; I knew when it was useless to keep going on a dead end, "I appreciate that thank you."

I hung up depressed, staring at the drawing. Ziva looked up from her desk across mine, "Anything or are up the river without an oar?"

"It's creek without a paddle, Probie." I corrected her absently, "Let me ask you guys something, if you saw a girl like this in the woods, and constantly draw pictures of her for months until you finally get leave to see her again, what does that make you?"

"Obsessed, desperate… Personally I think it sounds a lot like _you_." Ziva said with an irritating smile, McGee laughed over on his end, still tapping away on his computer with his techno skills hard at work. The guy could multitask with anything so long as computers were involved.

"Accept Tony can't draw to save himself," he smiles away my glare, I hate when he can do that, it makes me feel like my powers of senior agent are weakend by his newfound confidance.

"I've seen your work," He adds, hitting another nerve, "not the best skill you have."

"Keep talking McYoda and you'll be stuck out here when we…"

"Abby's search program ran dry, tell me you got something." Gibbs's voice had an edge that was close to yelling as she strode in, I hate when he appears out of nowhere like that, it's like he's a ghost or something. I pick up my note pad for everything I've found, it's disappointingly empty.

Ziva stands up, "Confirmed the roommate's alibi, Fred's family lives in the town of Midland in Texas. He took an early flight two weeks ago and didn't comeback until yesterday afternoon just as he said. There's no way he could drive between the two without anyone noticing even if he drove all night.

"I also looked into Colby's old unit, a week after Fred left for his flight Colby was allowed a week's vacation and withdrew a total of 200 dollars from his savings account. He used it to rent a camping equipment, gas up his car and purchased a disposable camera."

Gibbs turned to me; I racked my brain for something I could tell him, feeling next to useless.

"Our mystery girl… I looked into some local sites, I called them and my contact in the boys in blue about her and …"

Gibbs' stare seemed to harden, he wanted _good_ new and I had none. So much for having something good. I almost thought of making something up but that would only bring him down on me harder. And nobody in their right mind who knows Gibbs is going to want that.

"…I got nothing boss. Apparently we have to wait for Abby's results."

"But I found where he was going." McGee turned on the big screen showing a purchase record and a map, "I looked back to the last time he went camping in Rock Creek park."

"Take DiNozzo and see if she's there. Ziva, try and find out if he still has any of those pictures from the camera and look into whose blood we found at the crime scene as soon as Abby has it."

"Boss where are you going?" McGee asks as the two of us grab our gear too and head out.

"Question the family. And give them condolences."

The classic 'sorry-you-have-one-less-family-member-in-the-world-and-we-don't-know-why-yet', scenario. Nobody in any crime solving unit likes doing that, no matter how long they've worked there. Gibbs can handle it, but I know he prefers to do things on his own when he doesn't ask us for help. There are very few times any of us have ever worried about him going off on his own. Come to think of it there are few times he goes into situations alone, if he needed backup on anything he usually assigns us to it without need of asking.

As we exit the elevator I realize I left something at my desk, a very important something, "McGee, I left my jacket in the bullpen."

"No time, grab something on your way out." Gibbs called over his shoulder, putting his own long overcoat on. McGee following with his trench coat under his arm.

"Well, there's still snow out there in the parks and I…"

"You'll be just fine Tony, just do your job right." Gibbs tosses his empty coffee cup in the nearest trash bin. So much for trying, why did I try anyway? A girl's life could be at stake. That is…assuming she was real.

Agent Timothy McGee

Tony was complaining the whole time we were in the ranger center; the place had been having some trouble with its heating systems, so they couldn't bring the temperature up very high. I was fine as I had on my overcoat and cap. Tony only had on a red sports jacket, not the best thing for keeping out the cold.

"You could've grabbed something warmer Tony."

"Shut up McGeek." He snaps at me, shivering as close to the heater as possible, "It was all I could get from the lost and found on the fly. Not that you had to worry."

"Hello boys," a tall lady in park ranger uniform strode up, handing us both Styrofoam cups of what smelled like fresh hot chocolate, "I'm ranger Molly, sorry about the wait, we've been having trouble with the wildlife association. Calling us nonstop about how we've been sabotaging their traps and setting up evidence."

"The wild life association setting traps?" I asked, thinking that seemed odd. The ranger gave a heavy sigh pointing to a large net tangled in the corner. Tony was enjoying the warmth of the cup of coca like it was treasure; I guess when you as cold as he was at the moment it was.

"Our latest bagged us a camper who wasn't watching where he was going. Apparently he was more interested in hunting myths than listening to an alert."

I nodded, "I read about that, you've been having some trouble with an animal."

Tony's eyes flashed in humor, "What kind of animal, a bear or a stray dog?"

Ranger Molly shook her head, "We've been getting reports of a wolf the last few months roaming the camp grounds and plenty of evidence to back it up. From paw prints to animal remains, even fur caught in the fences right near the camp cabins."

I can't help but go a little pale at this, suddenly Tony's joke has gone dry, and from the look on his face he hadn't been expecting that either.

"Has anyone been attacked?"

"Thankfully no, but this is a _wild_ wolf we're talking about, and this time of year food gets scarce and that's when animals get braver. If we don't catch this thing sooner or later and relocate it, only a matter of time before something happens." She sounded concerned; most rangers are when it comes to animals and campers getting too close. It's alright to have them nearby for people to enjoy, but when an animal that big gets comfortable enough it starts thinking of the place as its territory. As such, attacks would soon follow and people's lives could be at stake.

She turned to us with a smile, "Of course that's not why you're here is it?"

Tony spoke through his drink shivering, "If it was, I'd be back at the base. At my nice warm desk, with a cup of coffee…"

He trailed off in day dreams of being warmer. Molly turned to me as I explained, "A few months ago a petty officer by the name of Colby Dickens came here on a camping trip, and when he got home he started drawing pictures of this girl right here. The way he talked about her she could be a real person."

I handed her a copy of the drawing, she took it with a look of concentration.

"Now we don't have an ID yet but we were hoping you could speed up the process." She didn't answer me, but her eyes had a flare of anger in them. I knew that kind of look anywhere, she recognized the person in the picture, and didn't like her, "You know her?"

"Yes I know her." She said angrily, slapping his picture back into my hands, "This is that freeloader Hova Monroe; she's been a pain in my side for the last thirteen months."

Tony and I exchanged looks; his voice lowered a bit, "Long time to be camping."

Molly shook her head, "There's an old cabin up on the north end of the park, nobody knew about it until we cleaned out some files last year, apparently it was forgotten years ago and as a result should've been run down. So when we go up there to see if its salvageable we find that _Hobo_ has been living there in secret. I mean everyone already knew her as the oddball who does odd jobs for peanuts around the park, but to think she was actually _living _right here _in_ the park where she _doesn't_ belong."

Molly's teeth were grinding, "Accept when we turned her in to the police, they found a deed to the shack stating it _belonged_ to her family as of ten years ago, even had a signature from our former head ranger on it. We had even been receiving payments on it every month until the year we found she was living there.

"Her lawyer was able to give her leave of the place so long as she can pay the rent on it. and I had always assumed the extra money was coming from a few of our private campers every year."

Tony frowned, asking before I could, "If she was working for peanuts then how could she get a lawyer?"

Molly rolled her eyes, "I don't know and I don't care. She should've been kicked out and arrested like the tramp she is, we almost had her on housing that wolf we were tracking, but other than paw prints there's no evidence that she ever did."

"Can you show us where she's staying?"

"If you can find a reason to arrest her I'll take you there in a private helicopter."

Another ranger called over, "Give the girl a break Molly, she's not hurting anyone. She _is_ living there legally, and even _you_ liked her home cooked goose at the Christmas potluck."

Molly growled as she walked off, the man handed us a map marked with red, "Around this time of day she should be in this area here, I can take you as far as the upper trail in my truck, but from there you'll have to walk."

Tony's eyes shot open, "Walk? As in walking in the snow? Isn't there a back trail you can take us on? A snow bike you can use?"

"Not enough snow anymore. Besides, if you don't find the cabin, she'll find you no problem." He said with a smile.

**As I am working on two tales for this site at the same time I will not be posting again until sometime after New years. thank you for reading and please review my work.**

**Merry Christmas! ^ v ^**


	4. Chapter 4

Timothy McGee, continued

Tony shivered as we walked along the partly snow covered trail; I had to admit the area looked pretty nice all covered in snow like this, like being on an alien planet or walking in a dream of glittering melting silver. When I mentioned this to Tony he just scoffed.

"Yeah, alien planet, like Pluto, or the Hoth system!" he shivered pulling his coat more tightly around him, "We've been walking out here for ten minutes and I can't see any trail out here. We might as well call in the jet fighters and have them send a couple of TonTons, we can use them like sleeping bags."

I grimaced at such an idea, I think I'd rather help Ducky in Autopsy than…you know I never really liked that part in Star wars, and checked the map, "You so cold that you can't think of anything other than that?"

Tony gave a small laugh, "Empire strikes back, one of the biggest geek movies of all time, and yet the last one they made, revenge of the Sith… not their best work."

"Neither is mine, we're off the trail." I began looking around to get my bearings, meanwhile tony practically exploded.

"Off the trail…? You mean were _lost_ and you didn't **_tell_** me?"

I don't answer his question; I know it's no good anyway. Instead I start heading back the way we came, circling back around when you're lost usually helps. It's pretty basic stuff in boy scouts; you get lost then backtrack till you recognize something. I nearly trip on a branch as I slip around Tony who's giving me a blue in the face angry look, of course after working with Gibbs for so long, compared to his stares Tony's are just tame and somewhat comical.

"Come on let's just turn around and we can head back." At this he tripped into some brushes, a startled goose call reaches my ear in the distance. Guess they still have some birds left over from the hunting event running around.

Tony got up, his voice dripping with ill intent he could never deliver on, "Its official, this is the worst day of my career, my life, very existence."

I reached down and helped him up, "Your existence? Come on Tony it's not that bad."

Tony glares as we start walking again, he wastes no time in complaining again, I have half a mind to smack the back of his head like the Boss would, "Trudging in a snow covered forest like Red Riding hood without the basket of cookies looking for a possible suspect who's _supposedly_ lives in a haunted cabin that was supposed to be demolished six _months_ ago and I left my heavy jacket at the office. Yeah it's a lot better than it sounds Probie."

I look back at him, frowning, "Red Riding hood?"

"The lady said there's been wolf sightings out here didn't she? A huge one that they can't catch."

I shrug turning back to the map, stopping as I see something familiar, we should be close now.

"Abby said wolves were smart." I say absently, my mind calculating where we are and how much farther it is.

"Hey," we turn to see a girl standing with arms crossed on a high rise, bright eye glaring at us, brows knitted together as she frowns. she's dressed in a simple pair of black running pants the kind you sometimes see cyclists wearing, a blue and red jacket, long sleeved with a zipper on the front, and on her feet are what looks like black bobs. Between the two of them this girl should be even bluer than Tony; she must have some immunity to the cold out here if she can dress like that and not be shivering like my childish companion.

She snaps angrily at us, brushing brown bangs out of her face and behind her ear, "You two city _slicks_ owe me dinner."

I look to Tony, silently asking if he heard her coming. He shakes his head, a different question on his mind, who's crazy enough to dress like that out here? I turn to the girl remembering what the ranger told us,_ If you can't find the cabin she's sure to find you_, "Um, Are you by any chance, Hova Monroe?"

888&888

Tony DiNozzo

I don't care if this girl is a hobo, odd ball giving tours, a witch living in a small stone cabin or even some Asylum escapee at this point, she had a warm cabin with sheepskin rugs and blankets by a fireplace and a little cauldron of stew and fresh bread that made my stomach growl like an animal. She had us leave our shoes inside the door before giving us any. My taste buds had never encountered anything so heavenly at that moment; full of flavor, a good smell that made your mouth water, and most importantly… it was warm.

I let Mc boyscout do the talking while I wrapped up on the rug chewing on every morsel. After all he's the one who got her to calm down. I still don't know what she meant by we owe her when we only just met a few minutes ago. I didn't care at this point though, after walking in the cold like that I was just glad to finally be getting the feeling back in my fingers.

"So how long have you lived in the park exactly?"

Miss Monroe shrugged, "Since my parents brought me here years ago. Mom said she wanted to live away from the city and Dad wanted to raise me to be independent of the outside. Worked pretty well I'd say."

"Accept your taking small time jobs for a poor man's pay," I piped up between spoonfuls of that stew, "Ranger Molly says you take campers on tours off the map trails, take pictures of the local wildlife for the gift shop, and on occasion taken up janitoring for the local shops out here."

She doesn't seem to be bothered by it, in fact she's smiling, "I have a deal with the guy who works at the observatory, he gives me small jobs for pay every week, sometimes he even pays me under the table to do his job for the day. He was a friend of my Dad for years."

"Do you remember every camper you interact with?" Mcgee asks.

Monroe shakes her head, "Not usually, some stick out more than others, but otherwise I don't get involved. Why, you looking for someone?"

Mcgee turns to me, I pull out the drawing of her and the picture of our dead marine, still can't figure out how he got _me_ to hold on to it, I hand her the photo first, "You recognize this guy?"

She looks at it a moment before shaking her head, "Never seen him before, what happened to him?"

"That's what we're trying to find out." I hand her the drawing, "And while you may not have known him, he seems to know you."

She takes the drawing, her nose twitches, eyes closed as he smells the paper. Now that was weird. She looks back at the two of us and shakes her head, "Obsessed, hormonal and lonely. Either he didn't get out often enough to get a girl of his own or I reminded him of someone he liked in the past. Although I like that he called me a forest fairy, it's a lot nicer than what Molly calls me."

Mcgee and I exchange knowing glances, "She doesn't like you too well does she?"

"With her reasons, I don't care." That seemed like an odd thing to say. Most people would either dislike someone in return or get a little upset about it, but with Molly's reasons and to not care…what the heck did that mean?

"Well… alright then." Mcgee says slowly, glancing at the stew pot. Monroe gets the ladle and pours him another bowlful. I don't blame him wanting more of this stuff, it's so good right now, "When we finish here, we can take you back to base, if you like we can help you pack up your things."

Monroe's ear twitched, eyes narrow, "Am I under arrest for something?"

"We think whoever killed Colby might come after you next" I explain, "Protocol is to take you in for your own safety."

Hova didn't say anything she stood up and went up a log staircase in the far corner, "I'll be back in few minutes. Feel free to finish the Quail stew."

My eyes widen at the mention of what kind of meat she's been cooking, "Quail? Mcgee did you hear that? I gotta try my hand at hunting next year."

Mcgee turns to me with a low voice, "Tony, do you see any hunting equipment?"

I look around, all the signs of a girl, somewhat messy, living alone, some wooden furniture like the chairs we're sitting in, the log staircase, and a kitchen conjoined by a simple step to the right. No signs of a gun, bow, traps, cameo jacket or even hunting boots, "She could keep it upstairs. Why?"

"Miss Monroe, how did you get these quails?" Mcgee calls up. She calls back down among the shuffling.

"When Hunting season is open I go out then catch and store it myself. The one you're eating however is from a bet one of the guys lost last year." She hops down the stairs practically skipping half of them at once; she's now wearing a black and silver coat a green turtle neck, dark jeans and black calf hugging boots. For an instant she reminded me of Katness from Hunger games.

She shrugged a backpack over her shoulder, eyeing us, "the guy gave me seven fat farm bred birds all canned by his wife. That's the last of them."

She looks between us, I look back at the stew thinking that if she still wants us to give her dinner ,then after this a simple hamburger or Chinese take out is so not going to cut it.

**I was hoping to make it longer but something wasn't going right.**

**please review and tell me your honest opinion. thank you!**


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